WARNING-on PC Calibre takes over MANY file associations

[jcarerra]

I installed Calibre on a Windows 8.1 PC yesterday.
Today, I double clicked a TXT file, and Calibre OPENED!!

On checking, I see that it has taken over file association for essentially EVERY text-type document of any sort on the computer.
txt
html
doc
docx
odt
js
on and on.
It took over everything, and has taken me about an hour of re-associating things back to the correct program.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in this obnoxious behavior.
I truly want to use very bad words.

[kovidgoyal]

calibre does not associate itself as the default handler for any file extensions. If txt files are opening with calibre, it is because you told windows to open them with calibre.

[jcarerra]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre does not associate itself as the default handler for any file extensions. If txt files are opening with calibre, it is because you told windows to open them with calibre.

I don't really care what you think. I am sitting here in front of the computer and I know what happened.
txt files before yesterday opened with Notepad Lite
doc files opened with Word.
I install Calibre, and as I said, later note that "document type" files are opening with it.
I look in Default Programs>"Associate a file...", and sort on the Current Default column. There I see a list of about 25-30 extensions now associated with Calibre.
I DID NOTHING TO CAUSE THAT OTHER THAN INSTALL CALIBRE.

Your statement that "calibre does not associate itself as the default handler for *any* file extensions" is totally incorrect in my case.
I DID NOT DO IT, so either the install did, or somebody snuck into my house overnight and changed them one by one.

The only thing I did "different" during install was to disable adding itself to the path (another unnecessary thing to do). There ABSOLUTELY was no dialog about file associations during install.

Look at the picture...it shows PART (list too long for one screen) of the extensions Calibre has associated itself with AFTER I have changed the ones I can recognize back to the right program.

[kovidgoyal]

I dont really care what you believe, I wrote the code for the calibre installer, and therefore I happen to know that it does not associate itself with anything. And, since calibre is open source you dont need to take my word for it, read the source.

You did something to make all those associations, you will need to figure out what. Or, just dont use calibre, no one is forcing you to use it.

[theducks]

If the man says it does not associate by default, then IT DOES NOT.

I have many systems of : XP, W7, Linux builds, and I have never encountered that behavior with an official (calibre-ebook.com) install on any version (.9 on)

Start Menu items: Yes
File associations need to be done manually for both the main program (that you show) and the book-viewer and book-editor.

By any chance do you have some sort of file browser 'helper tool' installed ?

[DaltonST]

@jcarerra,

Win 8.1 keeps track of what you install while you are in "Desktop Mode", and what you install while you are in "Win 8 App Mode". If you installed Calibre while you were in "Win 8 App Mode", instead of "Desktop Mode", then likely what happened is that Win 8.1 itself changed the file associations to "All file extensions that Calibre can open". It may have asked you a very innocuous question that you answered "yes" to, not realizing that Win 8.1 would do bad things.

If you had installed Calibre while you were in "Desktop Mode", this would not have occurred. Regardless, it is not Calibre's fault. Win 8.1 did this, not Calibre.


DaltonST

[eschwartz]

Recent versions of calibre will tell Windows what filetypes it can handle. This currently only happens on Win8, not earlier versions of Windows, specifically because Kovid has verified that Windows will NOT associate those filetypes by default, but will prompt you the first time to tell it which program you want to use going forward.

If Windows has done so anyway, it is not because calibre was designed to do so.

This does not happen to other people. If you can describe what non-standard behavior you might have performed that led to this, it is possible Kovid might be able to fix it from happening again. Regardless, lashing out here isn't going to help anyone.

Perhaps it is as DaltonST said?

[jcarerra]

OK, now there is new information...that it is conceivable that Windows did it. But how did it know which extensions to change?

And I assure you, unless I made a terrible mistake, I did not answer any question that clearly related to file associations--and don't remember ANY unexpected questions coming up.

But it happened, so SOMEtHING made it happen.
It appears as if the "Set your default program" was executed with Calibre selected--but I did not go into Control Panel during install. Puzzling mystery.

Also, I don't understand how/why Calibre makes NO associations. If you install it, should it not open epub files, for example?

Although it is not clear how this happened in my case, would it be warranted to EXPLICITLY have a dialog during install for user to select what extensions to associate?

And oh, I was in DESKTOP mode. Always am.
Only bring up the tile screen if it is an accident

I apologize a little bit for my tone. I was highly annoyed at having to manually change all those associations (and many are still associated since i don't know what the 'normal' association would be). As I mentioned before, the only thing I remember being a change from a straight install was deselecting the "put in path" item. I allow for a 5% chance of there being something else, but if it had the word 'association' in it, I would remember that.

A question--if you uninstall a program, does the uninstall process return associations to what they were before? If so, I could uninstall and reinstall and WATCH closely for what questions come up.

[cvkemp]

I can tell you that it was not calibre that did it. I have been using calibre on windows and Linux for a very look time.

[eschwartz]

I understand your friustration. Something somewhat similar happens on linux, because xdg-utils has several serious flaws -- and since calibre once again declares itself as a handler for different filetypes, in our case anything that didn't have an explicit filetype set sometimes gets overridden by calibre.


calibre makes no associations because Kovid doesn't want things to change without the user asking it to. Clearly that fell down somewhere here. Only when the user has specifically asked to associate a filetype with calibre, should it be associated, and supposedly Windows 8 actually makes that possible.

What should happen (what Kovid wrote calibre to do) -- calibre tells Windows it can handle a bunch of filetypes. The first time you try to open any of those filetypes, Windows prompts you with a list of programs that can open it (which includes calibre) and asks you to choose one, and if Windows should remember that choice.


I'm afraid I don't know anything beyond that, since I don't even use Windows 8.

[BetterRed]

calibre - What's new

Release: 2.20 [20 Feb, 2015] - New Features

Windows: When running on windows 8 and newer register with default programs so that users can more easily select calibre or its viewer/editor as the default program to launch ebook files.

Closes tickets: 1422248

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I dont really care what you believe, I wrote the code for the calibre installer, and therefore I happen to know that it does not associate itself with anything. And, since calibre is open source you dont need to take my word for it, read the source.

You did something to make all those associations, you will need to figure out what. Or, just dont use calibre, no one is forcing you to use it.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Recent versions of calibre will tell Windows what filetypes it can handle. This currently only happens on Win8, not earlier versions of Windows, specifically because Kovid has verified that Windows will NOT associate those filetypes by default, but will prompt you the first time to tell it which program you want to use going forward.

If Windows has done so anyway, it is not because calibre was designed to do so.

This does not happen to other people. If you can describe what non-standard behavior you might have performed that led to this, it is possible Kovid might be able to fix it from happening again. Regardless, lashing out here isn't going to help anyone.

These three 'posts' seem to be contradictory

@eschwartz - I know of an instance where the same thing happened on Windows 10 (not reported, because Win10 is in beta). That person solved the problem by doing a system restore to the state immediately prior to installing calibre. She did not attempt to reinstall calibre. She'll be in Sydney in a couple months when we'll look into it; by then perhaps, Win10 will be out of beta.

I also note that the screen shot posted by the OP is very similar to the list Preferences->Behaviour->Use internal viewer for - .BOOK, .IBOOK and IBOOKS are notable exceptions - which are 'owned' by Apple.

Could this be some sort of cross-over between Apple IBooks and calibre.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

calibre registers with default programs, telling it what filetypes it is capable of opening. It does not register itself as the default handler for any filetype.

The user (or some program she runs) has to change the default file types for that to happen, calibre itself does not do that.

In your case I'd guess you have something messed up in your system. Either the registry is corrupted or you have a third party tool interfering with file associations. In either case, doing a simple system restore should revert the changes.

[AnotherCat]

The most likely cause of the behavior experienced in Windows 8.x that I can think of, is that the following was accidently performed, or performed without understanding the consequences. I would be very surprised if it was something that Windows did maliciously.

I'll give the Control Panel route as to what may have happened as the OP refers to being a desktop only user:

Control Panel>Default Programs>Set your default programs>Calibre>OK.

This will associate all file types that Calibre can open with Calibre.

Note that this is different to the Control Panel>Default Programs>Accept a file type or protocol with a program option where one can set the associations individually. As far as I have seen the difference is often not fully understood.

The OP states "If you install it, should it not open epub files, for example?" from which one could infer that they may have been tempted to have set Calibre as a default program expecting that would just associate epub with it. Whereas, in fact, doing so will associate every file type Calibre can open with it.

[BetterRed]

@AnotherCat - that could explain my 'case'. The user went from XP to Win10 beta on a new computer, she bypassed Win 8.1 to avoid back-to-back re-learning curves.

BR

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@AnotherCat - that could explain my 'case'. The user went from XP to Win10 beta on a new computer, she bypassed Win 8.1 to avoid back-to-back re-learning curves.

BR

I hope so BR as it would shorten your troubleshooting job if it is.

I cannot recall if XP had the same option in Default Programs or not (Windows 7 did, and that's as far back as I can recall ) but even if it did, so was not new to your user, it is an easy mistake to make.